


beginnings

by tte



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: Family, Gen, Introspection, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-24
Updated: 2018-04-24
Packaged: 2019-04-27 07:46:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14420814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tte/pseuds/tte
Summary: You don't remember the first time you strapped on blades and stepped onto the ice. You were only three. But your mother told you the story: How you stood still for the entire two-hour session as if mesmerized, how she had to run onto the ice to drag you off when the zamboni came on.You loved it from the start,she said.You don't know if that's true, or if it's only her point of view. But over time the ice has worked its way into your breath and bones, and you can't remember things being any other way.





	beginnings

 

You don't remember the first time you strapped on blades and stepped onto the ice. You were only three. But your mother told you the story: How you stood still for the entire two-hour session as if mesmerized, how she had to run onto the ice to drag you off when the zamboni came on.

 _You loved it from the start_ , she said.

You don't know if that's true, or if it's only her point of view. But over time the ice has worked its way into your breath and bones, and you can't remember things being any other way.

\---

There are whispers of _prodigy_ circling around you before you even know what the word means, but you've never placed much weight on talent, and neither has your mother.

 _Talent without work is worthless_ , she'd scoff, and you would agree.

But winning comes more easily to you than it does to others, and you love to win. You don't remember the first competition you won, but you know that it felt good. The shelf in the living room overflows with your accolades, not only in skating but in school and gymnastics and piano and everything else. _Your son is a natural_ , your teachers gush, as you swing your legs back and forth on the chair, feet unable to touch the floor. _And he works so hard._

\---

Your mother loves you. Your mother loves you, and that is why she drives miles and miles every week, all over the state, so that you can have more ice time, and when you return home she will tutor you for an hour in math, and afterwards you will practice piano until your leaden eyelids are impossible to lift.

You are not so young that you can't tell what price your family pays for your skating and education, but still too young to force away the tears when the exhaustion becomes too much to bear. Your mother's hands are worn but firm as she leads you back to the car. You see those hands in your mind's eye, scrubbing the dishes and the floor, placing a bowl of rice before you on the table.

One day you will break (your spirit and your ice-brittle bones), and you will fight, and you will tell her you don't want to skate anymore, you don't want to do any of it anymore. There will be accusations and screaming and slamming of doors.

But you will reconcile, and you will return to the ice. You always do. No one makes you. More than anything else, skating has claimed you. You can't remember things being any other way.

Your mother loves you, and this, like all things, is a work in progress.

\---

Over the course of your skating career, you grow intimately accustomed to two places: the rink, and the hospital.

Both can be achingly cold. But the coolness of the rink feels like the embrace of home, while the chill of the hospital never does. You spend your life surrounded by white ice, and too many nights lying on sterilized white sheets, waiting in bored agony for your body to knit itself back together so that you can break it again.

Pain is a constant, a familiar companion. Distantly, you know you're living on borrowed time. But that makes the thrill of what you're doing now all the more immediate.

\---

Lori tells you the story of _Mao's Last Dancer_ as she plays the music for you in her studio. _I've been sitting on this music for a while_ , she says, _waiting for a moment to use it._

It is elegiac, and biting, and triumphant music, all at once. You find the movie online that night and watch it, and you think about many things for the first time.

Your parents rarely speak of their lives before America, and it never occurred to you to ask. You carry their blood and heritage in the blueprint of your body, in the shape of your eyes and the jet-black hair on your head; you carry the spirit and pride of your birth country in every anthem you sing atop a podium. You form the unfamiliar syllables of your Chinese name on your clumsy lips and tongue, the language trickling away with each successive Chen sibling until you had nearly nothing left.

You remember the stab of not-quite-envy, hearing Vincent speaking slowly but comfortably with Chinese reporters at the media summit, while your mind went blank when asked to give a message for Beijing 2022.

Li Cunxin's life is not your life, nor your parents' lives. But sacrifice, the giving up of one thing and the gaining of another - that, you can understand.

\---

 _The Olympic season is for my family,_ you tell Raf from the very beginning, knowing full well what he would think of it. _To repay everything they've done for me._

He understands your implications, and disapproves. You understand his concerns, but will not change your mind.

Your parents never said they expect you to win. They sincerely only want you to do your best, but deep down, you know. You want more, and you want to give them more, because theirs is a sacrifice that you can never repay in full.

\---

There is a momentary but overwhelming temptation, after the individual short program, to give up.

You have never failed this completely before. There have been mistakes and setbacks, but nothing of this magnitude. You choked. You gave all you had for years to climb onto the biggest stage in the world to announce _I'm here_ , and you showed them that you couldn't handle it. You completely, utterly choked, and that's the truth.

There's a ringing in your ears that blocks out every sound around you. You don't remember what you said in the mixed zone. You don't remember what Raf said to you backstage, either, only the look on his face that filled you with a hot rush of shame.

Your mother said nothing, only gave you a squeeze on the shoulder, and for that you are grateful.

Looking into the abyss that stretches before you, it's tempting to throw it all away. If you can't have it all, if you can't be the best, what's the point? What is there left to salvage? You have always been a perfectionist, demanding everything of yourself. You don't do anything by half measures.

_So don't._

You stare at the dark ceiling above and clench your fists in the sheets. The anger is a welcome relief from the numbness before it.

You take a breath.

You jump.

\---

 _How did it feel?_ they ask.

_How did it feel when you finished your free skate?_

You have a stock answer by now, but the truth is that you don't remember exactly how it felt, and even if you did, there's no way to retell it in words.

You try to relive the moment when it ended (when this story finished and the rest of your life began), but memory is fragile. Each time you revisit the scene you obliterate another piece of it, the way waves wash over writing in the sand, carving new patterns in their wake. You will never experience that specific moment of your life ever again.

But you've realized that you don't need to.

\---

Your brothers laugh and thump you on the back, your sisters ruffle your hair. To them, you'll always be the baby of the family, no matter how old you are. _We knew you could do it._

You smile. You don't say, _I didn't know if I could_. You don't tell them that when you leapt, you didn't know if you would fall or fly. You don't, after all, do anything by half measures.

It's an immeasurable comfort, having dinner with your family and no one else, after a grueling day of interviews. The Korean restaurant is good, but you suddenly find yourself missing your mother's cooking.

 _I'm sorry,_ she says later, when you are alone.

 _Mom, don't._ And you hug her tight, the way you haven't done since you were a small child.

\---

When you win your first World title, you put the medal around Raf's neck. You would have put it around your mother's, as well, when you finally show it to her, but she refuses. She simply takes it into her hands and sniffs. _What a tacky design._ But then she smiles, and you laugh.

Your parents bought a new cabinet years ago to store all of your medals. She puts the new one on the top shelf. You will leave them there when you go to college thousands of miles away, an anchor, but not a weight.

\---

You stand, momentarily frozen, in the pocket of silence after the cheers fade and before the music begins.

_Back to the start._

**Author's Note:**

> Written while listening to James Arthur's "Back from the Edge" on repeat.


End file.
